Proverbs 5:9
lest you concede your vigor to others, and your years to one who is cruel;
BSB
ASV
Lest thou give thine honor unto others, And thy years unto the cruel;
KJV
Lest thou give thine honour unto others, and thy years unto the cruel:
Give not thine honour unto aliens and thy years unto the cruel, lest haply strangers be filled with thy wealth, and thy labours be in the house of a stranger, and thou moan at the last, when thy flesh and thy body are consumed. For who are aliens from us but malignant spirits, who are separated from the lot of the heavenly country? And what is our honour but that, though made in bodies of clay, we are yet created after the image and likeness of our Maker?
Thine honor - i. e., “The grace and freshness of thy youth” (compare Hos 14:6; Dan 10:8). The thought of this is to guard the young man against the sins that stain and mar it. The slave of lust sacrifices “years” that might have been peaceful and happy to one who is merciless.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk5
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Nehemiah 13:26Did not King Solomon of Israel sin in matters like this? There was not a king like him among many nations, and he was loved by his God, who made him king over all…
leads to
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh—women of Moab, Ammon, Edom, and Sidon, as well as Hittite women.
Moreover, I will give you what you did not request—both riches and honor—so that during all your days no man in any kingdom will be your equal.
And I find more bitter than death the woman who is a snare, whose heart is a net, and whose hands are chains. The man who pleases God escapes her, but the sinner is…
therefore wisdom and knowledge have been granted to you. And I will also give you riches and wealth and honor unlike anything given to the kings before you or after you.”
Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and lay with her. So she gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. Now the LORD loved the child